1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a rotatable and portable storage tree (e.g., craft tree) having a plurality of panels for storage.
2. Description of the Related Art
Artists (e.g., painters, sculptors, stained glass workers, sketchers, etc.), craftsmen (e.g., crafters, woodworkers, carvers, etc.), mechanics, seamstresses, engineers, and chefs all share a commonality of requiring various tools and/or utensils to properly and successfully perform their work. For example, in order for a painter to paint a portrait, the painter may require materials such as paper, pencils, erasers, paint, brushes, a stapler, a camera, gloves, charcoal, glitter, etc. However, the aforementioned materials are typically not stored in a single location. More specifically, most people would store paper in a cabinet, erasers in a desk drawer, pencils in a pencil holder on a desktop, paint on a shelf, brushes in a brush-case, a stapler on a desktop, a camera in a closet, gloves in a dresser-drawer, charcoal in a box, and glitter in a jar. Therefore, when the painter desires to paint the portrait, he/she is required to collect the aforementioned materials from each of the different locations, and place the materials on a table, for example. This results in inconvenience and an inefficient use of time for the painter, as the painter must first go to each location to collect the required materials, and then organize the materials on the table for use. Moreover, this waste of time may cause added stress, fatigue, and frustration for the painter, thereby distracting and clouding the painter's mind, and accordingly, affecting his/her capacity for artistic creativity. Therefore, it would be convenient for the painter to have an art-supply storage system that allows for convenient storage and easy access of all art-supplies needed to produce a work of art. Also, it would be convenient if the art-supply storage system included an organizational system that allowed the painter to quickly locate a tool, utensil, material, etc., which is needed to perform a particular task at a particular moment.
Similarly, a mechanic working on a car engine may require various tools to fix the engine, including, for example, a screwdriver, a wrench, nuts/bolts, a power drill, motor oil, a saw, etc. The aforementioned tools may be stored in various places, such as toolboxes, shelves, drawers, etc., thereby again, making it inconvenient and inefficient for the mechanic to properly and quickly fix the car engine. Also, tools such as the power drill may be too large to fit inside a drawer or toolbox, and accordingly must be stored elsewhere, such as a wall-hook, peg-board, or shelf. Although the peg-board solution, for example, allows the mechanic to easily find the tools hung thereon, the peg-board is an unaesthetic and inefficient use of wall-space. Moreover, tools placed within a toolbox are typically mixed up inside the box, making it difficult for the mechanic to locate a particular tool, and can even get damaged as a result of being mixed together. Therefore, it would be convenient for the mechanic to have a tool storage system that allows for convenient storage of all tools needed to perform mechanic-related tasks. Also, it would be convenient if the tool storage system included an organizational system that allowed the mechanic to quickly locate a tool that is needed to perform a particular task at a particular moment.
Since the time when human beings first developed tools, a convenient way to organize and store the tools needed to perform a specific task has been a necessity. Prior art methods of organizing and storing tools are numerous including bags, belts, pails, etc. Some tool users keep their tools in boxes. Early tool boxes were made of wood. While these wooden tool boxes enabled tools to be kept in a single location and protected, wooden tool boxes did not present a convenient way to organize tools so that the tool required at a particular time could be easily identified and located. Many tools were simply dumped into a box and the person needing a specific tool had to rummage through all of the tools in the box or selectively remove tools one by one until the right tool was found for the job at hand.
The development of sophisticated manufacturing techniques has enabled low cost tools of all shapes and sizes to be made available to users. However, with more tools available to users the problem of storing and organizing all of the tools in a user's possession is exacerbated.
To this day, many conventional tool boxes simply include a removable tray sized to fit into the top of a tool box. By using the removable tray, smaller hand tools such as wrenches and screwdrivers can be separated from larger, less frequently used tools such as hammers and pipe wrenches. These larger tools are typically stored in the bottom of the tool box. For the sophisticated builder, car mechanic or repairman, a tool box with a simple tray insert is insufficient to organize all the different types of tools that might be necessary to complete a job. Moreover, a mechanic with a large collection of different tools will have a difficult time finding the right tool for the job in a tool box having only a top tray, thereby wasting valuable time and energy.
To organize and hold the many tools used by a mechanic, builder or repairman, chest-type metal tool boxes were developed. These prior art chest-type tool boxes can be from three feet to six feet in height. In each chest-type tool box are a number of different sized drawers into which even the heaviest tools can be placed for storage and protection. Some of these prior art tool boxes are made to be movable by the use of casters. However, large prior art chest-type tool boxes are too big to fit into tight spaces and cannot be rolled into spaces with a low overhead such as underneath a car or a truck. Moreover, the tools in chest-type tool boxes are stored inside the drawers, out of sight from the mechanic. Unless the mechanic has memorized the drawer location for each tool, the mechanic must open each drawer and then examine the contents of each drawer to find the right tool. This effort to find the right tool for a job requires the mechanic to leave a job in progress, walk over to the tool box and locate the right tool.
What is needed in the art is a tool organizing system which can be moved alongside a workman to the job site that will provide easy access to a large selection of tools. In addition, the tool organizing system should be able to fit in tight spaces as well as spaces with a low overhead and still present needed tools to the mechanic so that the mechanic does not have to dig through an unorganized pile of tools to find the right tool for the task at hand.
Furthermore, for a user with mobility problems and who can't keep getting up and down, it would be convenient to have all tools, utensils, items, and materials disposed in one storage area to limit the amount of times the user needs to get up and/or move to different locations to obtain the necessary tools, utensils, items, and materials.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have a compact, portable, changeable, and aesthetically-pleasing organizing system that allows a user to conveniently store, categorize, locate, and access tools, utensils, items, equipment, and materials based on the user's preference.